Speak
by MissChrys
Summary: My life was never normal, and I doubt it ever will be. Even still, my life spiraled into chaos on one particular day. That day I started the painfully terrifying battle for my life. Yes, I said the battle for my life; meaning that it was either Life or Death. What was my life war, you ask. Well, I call it "Speak".
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

"_Out of my way, freak!" said a random passerby, harshly pushing a young girl to the ground. She winced and got up, proceeding to rub her now bleeding arm. She looked up to find the bystanders glaring as they passed._

_Quickly moving out of the way of yet another passerby; she headed for a nearby park. There she almost immediately found kids playing and having fun._

_She watched them for a while before getting pushed back by an unknown force. Looking she spots the surprised face a young boy about her age._

_He looks at her curiously before looking to her bleeding arm. "Did I do that?" he asks wide eyed and pointing to the bleeding arm._

_Looking surprised at his question, she quickly shook her head to clear confusion, but he was already taking off his small jacket to wrap around her arm._

_Before he could hand her his jacket though, an arm pulled him up. The arm belonged to very tall and very pretty woman._

"_What do you are doing? I thought I told you not to go near her!" she whispers loudly to the boy._

"_But mom, she's hurt!" protested the boy, pointing at the small girl's arm._

"_I don't care, I don't want you by that…thing" said the woman, looking at the small girl with a disapproving look. _

_Even though she had heard worse, she still felt like she was about to cry. She looked back at the boy who was being dragged away by his mother. He looked apologetic and confused. He tried to smile reassuringly, but she didn't dare look; it would only give her false hope. Something she definitely didn't need. _


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter 1: Runaway**

Sighing, I walked through the village as I always did. But, there was something wrong… Just as I was looking around to figure out just what was off; I get pushed to the ground by a muttering passerby. I sigh again, wrapping my newly acquired wounds.

I get up and looking at the large gates of the village.

"It's you!" said a small male voice behind me. Not once thinking he could be talking to me, I continue staring at the large gates, that is, until a face blacks my view.

The little boy grins; "it _is_ you!"

Startled, I jump back a few feet. He looks at me curiously while she looks away to the big gates.

"Uh…" murmurs the boy. "Why do you keep looking at the gates?" he asks looking at the gates also.

I didn't answer; I just take another step back as he takes a step forward. He looks at me curiously and takes another step forward; I respond by taking a step back. Realizing the pattern, he reaches for her; "I'm not going to hurt you"

I look at his outstretched hand before turning and running to the large gates.

"Hey, wait!" he calls, watching as I run past the gates and into the thick forest followed instantly by guards.

After a few minutes of running, I slow to a stop, looking behind me only to see countless towering trees. Frightened, I turn around, but having lost my way, I could only see more trees towering overhead.

Turning around at the sound of footsteps, I stare, frightened, at the line of soldiers surrounding her.

My first instinct was to run, but where? I had no idea. Either way, I backed away slowly before taking off in a mad dash for the trees.

I heard their heavy footsteps as they followed me; I made a sharp right and started to climb a tree. I hid in the leaves till I could no longer hear them.

For a while I heard many orders for my capture before they grew silent. Taking deep breaths I decided that it was safe to come out and slowly climbed down from the tree.

"Found you!" I turned around to find a soldier sneering at me. I backed away but hit the tree behind me.

"No more running away, little girl" said the soldier glaring at me. He made a dash to catch me but I moved to the right and evaded his attack but for some reason I felt a sharp pain in my arm only to notice it bleeding.

I tried to scream but my voice wouldn't work. Seeing the chance, he grabbed my bleeding arm, making more blood gush out. I gasped at the pain and tried to free myself but he was much stronger than me.

I was starting to feel faint and my vision was getting fuzzy. Thinking it was the end for me I felt the soldier's grip loosen as he let go of my arm.

Seeing the chance, I took off at full speed away from the soldier; I had no idea where I was going, but I would go anywhere as long as it was away from the soldiers.

My escape didn't last long for I soon felt a stabbing pain in both my legs and my back. I almost immediately collapsed due to the pain and tried to crawl on the ground but couldn't.

I looked behind at the sound of loud thuds and found that the soldiers that were following me were on the ground not moving whatsoever. I didn't know if they were dead or if they were just knocked out but that didn't matter. All I knew was that I had to escape.

I try to stand but my legs wouldn't move and they hurt badly. My vision became even fuzzier and I barely noticed four figures land from the trees and run toward me before everything went black.

* * *

I woke with a start, staring at the clouds. It wasn't until I noticed the trees surrounding me that I gave any thought as where I was. I looked around and saw four people sitting in a circle, their backs to me.

Only one of them noticed I was awake. She looked different from the girls I was used to seeing. She had long dark hair and bright yellowish eyes. Upon seeing me awake, she grinned the widest grin I had even seen and got up.

She was tall and very thin; "Look at that, she's awake!" she exclaimed walking closer to me. As she grew closer, I became frightened, my eyes widened and I hurriedly tried to stand.

Almost immediately, my legs gave out and I sank to the ground. The others were now looking at me; three men. One of them looked older than the other two and didn't look like he cared at all about what was going on. One of the others grinned and waved; he had spiky red hair and bright green eyes. The other younger male had long blonde hair and black eyes, thus looking the most dangerous. I quickly get up, and ran with all my might towards the fuzzy trees. The pain in my legs was dull and so I could hardly feel it, making it easier for me to escape.

"Please don't run, you'll open up your wounds!" exclaimed the girl probably running after me.

I hear a laugh; "Ha! You scared her"

I turned around to see if she was still following me, but instead I found the red haired guy grinning at me. I turned back around just in time to see the girl in front of me with her hands on her hips and a surprised look on her face.

I suddenly stopped eyes wide and staring at her. "You know, you're really fast for a kid" she said with a half smile.

I kept staring at her, waiting to see if she would move. Either way, I started to back away but bumped into something instead. "Hey, where're you going?" asked the red haired guy.

I quickly jumped away from him just as the second guy appeared right by the girl. "If I didn't know better, I'd think she was scared" he says taking one huge step to me.

I was surprised he knew, I thought he was the worst one. I was contemplating whether or not to run again, after all, even I knew I couldn't escape, they could _appear_ wherever they wanted! I was no match for that.

"Well then why don't we take her to Konoha?" asked the guy behind me. _What's Konoha?_

I started to back away to the trees while they were distracted but before I could reach them I felt a dull hit on the back of my head.

"What was that for, sensei?" I think the red haired guy asked.

"Well, she wouldn't have come with us freely…" was all I heard before everything went black.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter ****2: Interrogation**

I woke with a start, and slowly opened my eyes to look around. Almost immediately, I heard voices, making my heart jump violently in my chest. While trying to escape, I found that I couldn't move my arms.

I looked down to find that I was in a chair and that my arms were locked to the armrests and my legs were locked to the legs of the chair. Words couldn't describe how afraid I was.

_Where am I?_

_What is this? _Was all I was able to think at that moment.

"Well, I see you're awake" says a voice from directly above me.

I looked up to a very scary face and felt tears surfacing in my eyes as I tried to scream, knowing that sound could never come out; no sound ever does. Besides, what does screaming ever do; nothing.

"Now, speak up; where did you come from?" he asked glaring at me.

Feeling utterly unnerved, I stayed frozen in the chair, unable to speak. Not like I was ever able to speak. And so, I just sat there crying as the scary man asked me questions I was unable to answer.

* * *

"Hokage-sama!" exclaimed a leaf village shinobi, entering the Hokage building.

"What is it?" asks said old man in a huge chair.

"The child, sir, she refuses to speak" answered the shinobi.

Sighing, the Hokage stands up from his chair and heads toward the rather small shinobi. "So, what do you suggest we do?" he asks.

The shinobi is shocked for a minute before regaining his composure; "well, if I was the child, I personally wouldn't want to tell Ibiki anything. So I would think we should give her someone to trust"

The Hokage smiles, obviously liking the idea; "So who do you think we should use?"

"…Well, I think we should use a member of ANBU corps; just in case she's dangerous" says the shinobi. "But out of all the available ANBU, I would go with Hatake Kakashi" continues the shinobi.

"I see, you may leave" says the Hokage. "Oh, and tell Kakashi to see me immediately"

"Yes, Hokage-sama" replied the shinobi before leaving.

* * *

Little did I know that while I busy crying my eyes out, the village leader was busy figuring out what to do with me; and so I had no idea why a masked man would suddenly come into my presence to free me from the chair.

"Ibiki-san, Hokage-sama says that won't be needed" said the masked man to the scary man.

"No, I will make her talk, I've never failed, and I refuse to start now" replied the scary man. I simply sniffed and listened to their conversation though I didn't really understand much, at that time.

After talking back and forth for a few minutes, the masked man finally unlocked the metal things around my wrists and my legs and I could finally move again. Immediately, my first thought was to run, but where was I supposed to go, I had no idea where I was.

While I waited to see what would happen, I wiped the remnants of the tears from my eyes, but before I could completely wipe them, the masked man was in front of me. He looked like he was smiling, but I wasn't so sure.

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked, his voice somewhat muffled through the mask. I slowly shake my head. That wasn't what I had been expecting.

"What would you like?" he asked sounding like he really wanted to know. I just shrugged, unable to speak.

It almost looked like he frowned through his mask, but again, I wasn't sure. But before I could be sure, he stood up straight and held out his hand. "Come"

Still feeling scared, I refused his hand and instead, moved them behind my back. Taking the hint, he took back his hand and began walking toward what I assumed was the door. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to follow him. I had no idea that decision would change my life.

"Don't you have any shoes?" he asked, looking at my feet. I looked also and shook my head. Meanwhile I took that time to look over his features. I noticed I could only see one thing on his face; his right eye. He had white hair that stuck up in weird ways and a metal plate on his forehead with a weird symbol on it. He was tall and he looked fairly young, considering that I couldn't see his face.

I wanted to know who he was, and why he helped me, but I didn't know how. Before I could do anything to gain his attention, he turned to me and again it looked like he was smiling.

"Where are my manners?" he asked; _am I supposed to answer that?_ (I would later learn that he asked a rhetorical question) he crouched down to be eye to eye with me and said; "my name is Hatake Kakashi, what's your name?"

_Hatake Kakashi…_ I just stared at him, not knowing what to do. I wanted to tell him my name, but two things stopped me. One, I still didn't trust this man, and so I was still afraid of him because I had no idea if he would attack me or not. And two, even though I wanted to badly; I couldn't. So, as always, I opened my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. No sound ever comes out.

He looked confused, but said nothing about it. Instead he led me to a restaurant that smelled really good. He sat in one of the many stools and I sat a stool away from him, with one more stool between me and a blonde boy who was eating.

Of course I hesitated a bit, but my growling stomach made the decision for me. Kakashi ordered something and I had to point to what he had to order my own. The man who took my order looked like he didn't quite understand why I did that but said nothing of it.

The food was delicious, though I was scared to eat it at first; not until Kakashi tried it first. The man seemed a bit mad but again, said nothing of it. I could feel the blonde boy watching me and I felt scared all over again, but he soon left, and I felt a little bit relieved.

After finishing the food, which I learned was called Ramen, I followed Kakashi into a bright place with a lot of shoes.

"Pick whatever you want" he said motioning to the entire place. I walked around the whole place looking at the many different types of shoes, and every time someone came I would hide behind one of the many shelves of shoes. Finally I walked over to a pair of small red shoes. They had small heels and a strap to connect the two sides of the shoe.

"So you like that one?" asked Kakashi, coming up behind me. I ran all the way to a small bench by one of the shelves before my mind registered what was going on. Kakashi just blinks and takes the shoe from me without a word.

"Does it fit you?" he asked referring to the shoe. I just shrug, looking away. "Sit" he said, so I sat. He held my foot up to try and fit the shoe on it, but I quickly pulled it away. Taking the other shoe from the shelf, I pull it on my other foot. It fit perfectly.

Kakashi tells me to take it off so he can pay for it, and that's how I got a shoe. Although I did try to keep the shoe so he couldn't pay for it, but it didn't work. As long as he had one, he could pay for it, so he ended up paying for my new pair of shoes. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but wonder why he was being so nice to me.


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter 3: New Home**

After the sudden kindness showed to me by Kakashi, I wasn't sure what to do. I had made up my mind to run away after he freed me, but after that, I wasn't so sure. I wasn't sure about a lot of things at the time.

So while I contemplated whether or not to run away, he took me to his home and told me I could stay in his extra room that he just happened to have.

After I moved into my room, all I did was stare at my new pair of shoes, contemplating whether or not to leave. At last, I decided. Since he was kind enough to buy me a pair of shoes, I decided it would've been rude of me to keep them. So I made plans to leave by nightfall.

By nightfall, I had everything set, though there wasn't really much to set up. I placed the pair of shoes by the bed and since I couldn't write, I couldn't leave him a note or anything. I quickly said a silent goodbye to my shoes and crept just as silently out the window.

Fortunately his house wasn't two stories or more, so I could freely jump out the window without hurting myself.

I ended up running in a random direction before realizing that I had no idea where I was going. I tried going the opposite way of the food place which was near the place I was freed from, but I had no idea where that was.

So I ended up in the middle of a dirt road, lost and very much scared.

"What're you doing out here?" asked a voice. It sounded a lot like Kakashi; too much like Kakashi. I turned around and of course, it was Kakashi, and if I hadn't known better, I would've thought he was worried.

I could do nothing but stare while trying to find a way to tell him my thoughts. I knew it wasn't possible, but for the first time since I can remember, I actually want to tell someone something.

So instead of trying to answer, I slowly backed away, hoping he wouldn't notice till I got far enough. I wasn't that lucky. Since I was walking backwards, I didn't see the pretty big rock behind me, and ended up falling backward onto the hard ground. At least that's what I thought would happen.

My cushion wasn't exactly soft, but it wasn't really hard either. My cushion was Kakashi. He sighs and places me gently back on the ground. "Be careful next time, you could've been hurt" he scolded me like a parent, even though he only just met me. I wondered why.

It looked like he was smiling again by the time I looked up. He reached all the way down and grabbed my hand, and as much as I tried, I couldn't free myself. His hand was warm, and eventually I stopped trying to make him let go.

He then leaned down and placed his other hand on my head. "Let's go home, don't want you running away again"

_Home…;_ thinking about that word literally brought tears to my eyes. Of course it did; I never had that word. At least, not that I can remember…

* * *

"What's wrong, why are you crying?" I ask staring worriedly at the child before me. She shakes her head, wiping her tears. _She even cries silently…_

"Uh did the fall hurt?" I ask, trying to guess what would make her cry. She shakes her head again and sniffs. _It is really hard trying to figure out why she's crying if she won't speak. _

"Uh, let's go home and we'll figure it out" I say standing up. At that she seems to have started crying all over again. "Can you walk?" I ask looking down at her.

She nods and begins following me to the house. When we got there she seemed to have stopped crying and was looking around.

"Are you alright now?" I ask, keeping my tone soft. She nods and pulls at my hand. I pull her towards a small table and tell her to sit down. She does, looking scared.

"I'm not going to hurt you" I say quickly willing her to calm down. "I have a few questions"

She looks at me innocently and I continue; "you can't talk, can you?" she looked surprised that I asked, but soon shook her head. _Well, that's going to make things a lot harder._

"Can you write?" I ask. She shakes her head, looking sad.

"Can you at least read?" I ask pulling out my book. Since it's not for her age group, I'm sure she wouldn't understand it.

She nods hold up two fingers close together. When I didn't get it, she looks around and picks up a small pencil from the ground. "Uh, it's small?" I ask, confused by her logics.

She nods smiling. It's the first time I saw her smile. I tried to put it together; she can read, and she has a small pencil. "You can read, a little?" I ask waiting for her reaction. It came quickly.

She smiled wider and nodded quickly. I smiled also, though I don't think she could see it, and quickly wrote down the hiragana alphabet for her.

Now that I know she can read, she can tell me her name. "If I give you this, can you write your name for me?" I ask handing her the hiragana sheet and a blank sheet along with a sharpened pencil.

She looked at both sheets and began writing. She wrote three things before handing me the previously black sheet. On it read _Ririn_.

"So, your name's Ririn?" I ask, to make sure. She smiles again and nods. I smile also and pat her head lightly; "Alright Ririn, you may go to bed now"

She nods and gets up, bows and leaves. As the sound of her footsteps fade, I continue to stare at the sheet of paper. _What have I gotten myself into. _

_I'm taking care of a mute girl named Ririn. _


	5. Chapter Four

.:|[04]|:.*.:|[Speak]|:.*.:|[Anthrophobia]|:.

[ ]

**Chapter 4**

The light of the sun woke me at a little past dawn the next day. I sat up and yawned looking around my new room. My stomach growls loudly snapping me out of my newfound thoughts. And so, I got out of bed to try to find something to eat.

As I trekked around the house in my new shoes, I remembered Kakashi and wondered where he was. I decided to search for him, in that I found that his room was empty and so was the rest of the house. There was no food and there was no Kakashi.

Feeling scared and hungry and decided to leave to find something to eat and maybe Kakashi also. As I exited Kakashi's home, I found my greatest fear; there were people everywhere.

Because of my newfound discovery, I contemplated going back into the house, but decided against it. I had nothing to eat and Kakashi was nowhere to be found.

So I walked alongside the house to avoid the people and was eventually able to step onto the road where there was no one. I scanned the dirt road and finally decided to go right, where there continued to be less people.

I continued to stare at my shoes in order to mot attract attention as I walked toward a large building with an even larger mountain with faces on it. _This is a weird village…_ I thought remembering the many times I had been hit for simply walking on the street. Here, no one seemed to care who I was.

Just as my heart began to calm down, I walked right into something soft yet hard, well, I was sure my head hit something hard. I looked up to see what I had hit, but in front of me was a small purple haired girl that looked about my age, maybe older.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?" she asked, looking apologetic. At first I was shocked that she had asked, but then my heart reminded me that people were dangerous, and that I could not trust them. So I got up quickly and ran the opposite way of the large building and the mountain with faces.

After a few seconds of running, I noticed that I was running to where the many people were, so made a sharp turn right into a forest. It wasn't really a forest, but it sure had a lot of trees.

A knock at the door signaled a visitor, making the old man at his desk raise his head from his abundant number of paperwork.

"Hokage-sama, I came with the report" said the masked man entering the room at the sound of the old man's voice.

The old man smiles and replies; "What did you find?"

"Quite a few things actually" says the masked man holding up a sheet of paper.

"Well, continue" says the man, putting down his stamp.

"Right, well, her name is Ririn and she appears to be a mute" says the masked man referring to the sheet of paper which he hands to the Hokage. "So basically, it wasn't that she _refused_ to say anything to Ibiki, it's that she _couldn't_" explained the masked man.

"I see, well, go back and see if you can find out anything else" says the Hokage, putting the sheet of paper into one of his drawers.

"Yes, Hokage-sama" replies the masked man, leaving the room.

I was once again scared as I frantically tried to get out of the forest. I had no idea where I was and didn't have the urge to find out. So following the light of the sun, I was able to get out, but only to find a group of people holding sharp objects.

The people looked around my age, though they may have been older. Only one of them was an adult and he seemed to be monitoring them, and that's when I realized that the girl I had bumped into was there.

I watched her for a few seconds to find that she was looking at someone else, a blonde boy in an orange hooded jacket. He didn't seem to notice her though. Frowning, I looked at the others and saw that one particular boy had more sharp objects than the rest and he looked like he was about to throw them right at me.

Shocked, I looked around myself and gladly noticed that there were target post things on certain trees. After a few seconds, the boy threw the sharp objects and they all hit the targets on the trees, not a single one missed.

Fascinated and impressed, I continued to watch as the blonde boy came up looking determined with his handful of sharp star shaped things.

When he threw the stars, I suddenly had a bad feeling about the way he threw them. Just as the thought came, one of stars landed right in front of me, barely an inch away from my new shoes.

My heart jumped immediately and I made my escape, but unfortunately, I happened to step on a fallen branch along the way.

I had barely made it out of the forest when I spotted Kakashi. He was with another man and it looked like they were doing something with their hands that I couldn't see, so I decided to move closer.

Just as I stepped out of the forest, Kakashi turned and looked right at me. "Ririn, what're you doing here?" he asked, sounding startled. It looked like he pinned the other man's thumb and he immediately walked over to me and grabbed my hand.

"I was looking everywhere for you!" hearing that was one of the most surprisingly shocking things I had ever heard in my entire 6 years living. _He was looking for me?_

I was too busy being surprised that he was actually looking for me that I didn't notice that he was taking me closer and closer to the weird man in all green with strangely thick eyebrows.

When I had finally noticed, I tried my best to get Kakashi's attention. Luckily for me, he quickly turned, but then I had to find a way to tell him that I was hungry. I made a motion as if I were eating and tried to imitate holding some sort of dish. He didn't seem to understand though.

I sighed and tied again; he still didn't get it. "I think she's trying to say she's hungry" said the man in green, which utterly startled me, and I bet if I could, I would've squealed. But either way, I smiled and pointed at the man while staring up at Kakashi.

He finally understood; "So what do want to eat?" he asked looking down at me. Meanwhile, the first thing that I thought of was the noodle type thing that I ate the day before. The only problem was that I had no idea what it was, all I knew was that it was good.

So finally I got an idea and crouched down and began drawing the image I had in my mind. When I was done, they were both staring at it oddly. "You want Ramen?" asked Kakashi motioning to the little drawing I made in the sand.

_What was Ramen?_ I wondered. I shrugged and I think he smiled said; "it's what we ate yesterday"

Knowing that, I smiled and nodded, glad to know that he knew what I meant. And so we went to what was called the Ichiraku ramen stand for ramen, and again I had to point to whatever Kakashi had in order to be able to order.

But that wasn't what bothered me about that day's trip. It was the fact that there were a countless number of people at the stand that day. Now I know that'd I'd probably be able to count them all, but it wasn't a very rational moment for me. So in order for me to avoid the other people, I had to stay close to Kakashi, and at some point in our lunch, I think he noticed that I didn't have the least bit of liking for people, or maybe I should say humans.

Later that afternoon after we got back from Ichiraku's, he asked me a question which I was exactly ready to answer at that moment. He asked if I was anthrophobic, but the problem was, I had no idea what that was.

So after much explaining, I finally answered that yes, I was desperately afraid of people.


End file.
